Quantitative urine collections are requested frequently for infants or very young children, or for other types of patients, such as aged or handicapped persons. For example, for infants, it may be required to collect urine specimens for several twenty-four hour periods for use in diagnosing and evaluating various conditions, such as: failure to thrive, adreno-genito syndrome, neuroblastoma, diabetes, cardiac conditions, renal disease, and metabolic and endocrine disorders. Therefore, it is imperative that accurate quantitative urine samples be collected for a twenty-four hour period. Since infants or very young children are too young to cooperate, it is necessary to employ a mechanical method and means to collect the necessary urine specimens, with due regard for the safety and comfort of the patients.
In the prior art, several different methods of collecting quantitative urine specimens have been and are presently employed. One method of collecting urine from an infant or very young child is by applying a plastic urine-collecting bag to the child. The plastic bag may have a catheter inserted into it which is used to empty the contents after the child has voided. A second method is to employ a twenty-four hour plastic urine-collecting bag which has a drain tube leading to a receptacle (as manufactured by Hollister, Inc., Chicago, Illinois). The main problem with these methods is loss of urine, necessitating the restarting of the quantitative urine collection procedure sometimes as much as two or three times, and frequently more, thereby keeping the child in the hospital for a long period of time and thereby delaying an accurate diagnosis. Other problems include disturbance of the patient by reapplication of the urine bags, excoriation of the skin due to moisture, and the need for constant restraint of all four extremities.
A third method involves the use of a modified isolette and/or crib, and is currently being used at the National Institute of Health. A fourth method, frequently used to collect urine, involves a "metabolic mattress" (with one or two holes in the mattress). The mattress is difficult to keep clean, and both of these methods are quite expensive.
Pump-operated urine collectors have been also proposed and have been experimentally successful in some cases, but in all cases have been excessively cumbersome and awkward.